Reduce

Goal:

By 2012, improve water efficiency by 20 percent compared with a 2004 baseline.

We believe that our first responsibility is to manage our own water resources in our operations wisely. Our nearly 900 bottling plants around the world rely on water as it is the most important ingredient in our beverages. Water is also used for beverage manufacturing processes such as rinsing, cleaning, heating and cooling.

Together with WWF, we developed a plant-level water efficiency toolkit that helps bottling operations to understand how their water use tracks with best practices within the Coca-Cola system and find proven water efficiency practices to implement in their plants.

In 2010, we improved our water use efficiency across the Coca-Cola system for the eighth consecutive year. We used 294.5 billion liters of water to make 130 billion liters of product, giving us a water use ratio of 2.26 liters per liter of product. That is a 4 percent reduction over 2009 and a 16 percent reduction since 2004, our baseline year.

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is the world's largest beverage company, refreshing consumers with more than 500 sparkling and still brands and more than 3,800 beverage choices. Led by Coca-Cola, one of the world's most valuable and recognizable brands, our company’s portfolio features 20 billion-dollar brands, 18 of which are available in reduced-, low- or no-calorie options. Our billion-dollar brands include Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero, Fanta, Sprite, Dasani, vitaminwater, Powerade, Minute Maid, Simply, Del Valle, Georgia and Gold Peak. Through the world's largest beverage distribution system, we are the No. 1 provider of both sparkling and still beverages. More than 1.9 billion servings of our beverages are enjoyed by consumers in more than 200 countries each day. With an enduring commitment to building sustainable communities, our company is focused on initiatives that reduce our environmental footprint, create a safe, inclusive work environment for our associates, and enhance the economic development of the communities where we operate. Together with our bottling partners, we rank among the world's top 10 private employers with more than 700,000 system associates.